To keep goals from becoming resolutions, also keep an eye on your social environment. A recent New York Times article showcased research that suggests "obesity is contagious." (The stock price at Hardee's parent company probably skyrocketed.) The research showed that if you hang around fat people, you'll get fatter. Well, yes. Here's a spoiler for some future studies: Republicanism is also contagious. So is plastic surgery. Even spitting is contagious (for proof, just watch baseball). You decide what's normal behavior by looking around you.
And that's why your organization's culture will often determine what's a resolution and what's a goal. Some cultures are strong enough to make ambiguous, unenforceable behaviors possible. "Amaze the customer" could be a goal at Nordstrom or Disney, but it's a resolution at The Limited. Staying thin is a goal in the fashion industry and a resolution at Cracker Barrel.
So if you want your own New Year's resolution to become a viable goal, you need to surround yourself with resolution achievers. Good luck with that. It would probably be easier to soothe yourself by hanging around FEMA employees. Indifference is contagious.
Read more Made to Stick columns
Dan Heath and Chip Heath are the best-selling authors of Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die.
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Recent Comments | 12 Total
January 31, 2008 at 12:33am by Jay Tatum
Universal generalizations aside, I disagree. Following the concluding logic one might be tempted to add to this discussion what I call the alphabetic litany. Just go down the alphabet and add a word beginnng with a, go to b, and so on and you could speculate about a good many things. I am not sold on the differences between goals and resolutions either and that may just be semantics at stake. Regrettably surrounding one's self with reolution achievers may not ultimately produce the desired outcome any more than doing it with Victoria's Secret models, though their presence may be more tolerable in a male sexist kind of way.
Instead I prefer self-differentiating behavior on the part of my leaders that says they are taking responsibility for themselves, know where they are going, what they need to do to get there, and whether the juice is worth the squeeze. At least in this scenario, the if/then reasoning is balanced with some practical measures and milestones.
February 11, 2008 at 1:14am by Carlyle Bradford
What I've found to work is to imagine and visualize a consequence if a goal is not met. For example, if your business goal at the beggining of the year is to increase sales at a gradual rate of about $500 per account per month (goal with specific date and time deadline attached) and if this goal is not reached you are unable to receive a salary and feed your family (consequence), it is likely you will become more motivated to achieve this goal than you would be if there was no consequence. Fear drives people's emotions in their personal life, consequence should drive a business man's actions in his professional life. Set a measurable goal with a time (deadline) and a consequence. Remind yourself to take action, and commit to it. And once you've achieve the goal, reward yourself and your employees. Your business will grow, and you'll get more satisfaction out of knowing your moving forward instead of backward or nowhere.
November 11, 2008 at 9:21am by Eugene Wade
There is a lot of research that this approach is actually the most effective way to accomplish things. A good way to put this into practice on a day-to-day basis is David Allen's Getting Things Done approach. Here is a link to GTD: http://davidco.com/index.php
November 6, 2009 at 11:04pm by Edgar Degas
I always think that resolutions dries up pretty quick because they are only back up by motivations but when you try to make goals you also inspired that why it easier to keep a goal because of your intentions that come from the inspiration and difficult to keep a resolution by psyching up some motivations which don't usually last.
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